Re: Locking down the User Interface

[D-Man <dsh8290 rit edu>]

IMO it is "needed" by those running the labs in universities (and other similar positions) who don't want to allow users to customize things.  The computer engineering department has a lab with Win95 machines.  The lab is used for M68K assembly programming and various other digital systems work.  They say that the machines are all setup properly and identically.  They probably were at one point, but when I was using the lab it seemed that none of the machines were identical.

I think that in Win9x it is useful (necessary!) to prevent people from breaking things, but in a Unix system the distinction between users removes this necessity.  The computer science department at my school has several labs with Sun UltraSparcs (currently with Solaris 8).  They don't try to force configurations on people (including the system-wide shell rc files).  Each person can enjoy the look and feel that they want.  The only caveat is if you don't source the system rc files, you are responsible for tracking any changes that are made.

I really llke being able to set my own features and backgrounds and window managers and such.  It makes my computing experience much more enjoyable.

Perhaps the computers are expected to be used by non-geeks and the admin is afraid that the users will shoot themself in the foot and require time-consuming rescue.  This can be worked around by having a script/app that will take a default config and overwrite the users current config.

Just my $0.02.
-D

On Mon, 13 Nov 2000 13:28:28 Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero wrote:
 | gh068 ghit co uk (2000-11-13 at 0918.28 +0000):
 | > Is there anyway that you can lock down the user interface to prevent
 | > users from changing the backdrop, colour scheme, font size, screensaver
 | > etc, so that all desktops have the same look and feel. Is there any
 | > tools to achieve this, or is it a case that admin permissions must be
 | > set on all tools and the users GUI profile?
 | 
 | None that I know, but lot of people asked for that "feature", and
 | based in GNOME file usage, it could break things (I saved sessions
 | weeks ago, but I have files under ~/.gnome updated yesterday).
 | 
 | Can somebody explain me why that feature is needed?
 | 
 | GSR
 |